Um thank you for coming.

We have the bond vote coming up shortly on November 4th.

There is early voting available.

So we thought we'd take this opportunity to have a presentation, a quick kind of webinar about what the vote is about.

Two different topics today, but I'm gonna start things off with the TIFF bond vote for Stevens Branch apartments and infrastructure, and then turn it over to Carol and Nicholas for the second bond vote item.

But this is being recorded, so then others can possibly watch if they have questions too, and kind of try to keep it as concise as we can, but also answer questions if anyone has one.

And this is you know your way of staying informed and getting ready for this special election because there is um this is out of our usual election cycle.

So we like to make sure everyone's got the right information.

So we're asking voters to consider this item for infrastructure to support a housing project.

The housing project is located on Seminary Street.

It is currently a vacant parking lot, and it would be converted into 31 units of affordable housing run by Down Street with parking on site, and the infrastructure that the city would provide would be to upgrade the uh water and sewer power streetscape along Seminary Street.

Really creating some connectivity between Summer Street and North Maine, also upgrading the parking lot behind the Campbell lot that would be upgraded to have more circulating better circulation and increased green space.

And that would be the new uh really it's existing public parking, but it would be where we would direct public parking more frequently given that the public parking where there is current this building is currently planned will no longer exist.

So this is an improvement to the to the area.

I could show a picture here of the infrastructure that we were just I was just explaining.

So you've got seminary street here, Main Street is here, and so this upgrade with um more streetscape connectivity sidewalk that will kind of enhance this little corridor and also bring the pedestrians into downtown from the downstreet project, and then they have their project, which has um permits and is um uh run by Down Street, but with Ever North as well.

And then this is the Campbell parking lot currently accessed off of West Street and will be enhanced green space as well as circulation improved circulation and um wayfinding.

So hopefully easier to navigate parking area, easier to locate, and then uh a better connectivity over here.

And so that's the kind of work that this kind of program does, which is to support the creation of housing and other types of economic development uses that the city wants to see by investing in infrastructure.

So this is the city's ability to help get what it wants into the downtown by without ever taxing the taxpayer.

So this is called TIFF tax increment financing, and it means that the city can then invest, use a municipal bond to invest in the infrastructure, build all of those different things we just talked about, and use the resulting tax increment, the resulting new taxes that are created by the housing project and put those into a fund that pays down the debt service.

And so the debt service then is paid for not on tax dollars, not out of the general fund, but out of this TIFF fund.

Carol, could you speak a little bit about our existing TIFF district and the um fund that we have currently?

And um City of Barrie has had a TIFF district from since uh 2012.

Um when you develop a TIFF plan, it has to be it gets presented to the state to the Vermont Economic Progress Council, and they have to approve it.

There's a limited number of TIFF districts in the state.

Um we were lucky enough to have one of them on the original TIFF district that was developed over 10 years ago, uh had a focus on parking enhancements because we were doing the TIFF district in support of the um downtown development that included city place, the rehabbing of lantern block, uh the summer street housing and some other projects uh in the downtown.

Uh and the need was for parking.

So that's what the original TIFF district um was used for.

Um about four years ago, we started reviewing where the TIF district is on as far as what the needs are, and we realized that things had swung to uh a need not only in very city but statewide for housing.

Uh and so we looked at what there were uh for potential housing development options, uh, and that's how we ended up where we are here.

Um, in the meantime, uh the 223 parcels that are currently in the TIFF district, uh they um any property that has had an increase in value uh during the life of the TIFF since 2013 has uh created increment um uh value taxable value above the base value that was set at the beginning of the district.

Uh and those uh increment funds have been um deposited into a TIFF increment account uh which is used to pay our debt service.

Um we did a 2.2 million dollar bond back in 2013, which covered the parking improvements, so we're making debt payments out of that with the with the increment funds.

Um because our TIF district has been in existence for over 10 years.

Uh we're considered a mature TIF district, and we have a healthy balance in our TIFF increment fund right now of uh about close to a million dollars.

Um so we have uh available funds to cover debt service for this new project moving forward, uh, in addition to increment that is generated by this project and other projects that are coming along uh in this particular TIFF district.

The TIFF district is um essentially the downtown from City Hall Park to uh Route 62 where it comes down from the hospital, and then from the uh Stevens Branch River to Summer Street and both sides of Summer Street are included.

So uh there is a map on the city website.

There's a whole section on this vote on the city website, uh including a bunch of different documents, um, and one of them is a map of the district so you can see what what area is actually included.

Great.

Thank you, Carol.

And so what we're asking, and what we're we're letting folks know is that there's a vote on November 4th.

There's two other things to vote on.

There's two ballots.

One ballot will have this item on it, as well as the garage that's going to be talked about next by the city, and a separate ballot.

But this ballot will have this issue on it, talking about seminary street upgrades.

So those are those that's the upgrades to the infrastructure and Campbell lot upgrades, and that's the public asset that the city will own by putting this money into it, but it will all be paid for out of these taxes that would not exist if not for this type of investment.

So this is uh growing the grand list, adding infrastructure without increasing the tax base at all.

And so we are um we have put together FAQs, frequently asked questions, and those are on the website as well, Carol, I believe.

And so if you have questions that don't get answered today, or you hear a neighbor who has questions, or you hear something that doesn't make sense to you, please feel free to go to the website, tell friends and family to go to the website, other taxpayers and voters and tell them to get their questions answered, and then there's contact information right on there if there's a specific question that hasn't been answered.

But we just want to make sure everyone has all the right information.

So we're gonna pause and take questions on this item before moving on to the garage question.

So if anyone has one.

I'll go ahead and stop my screen so I can see everybody.

All right.

Seeing no questions.

Why don't we go ahead?

I'll um give my here.

Let me make you a host.

Um, you don't mind go over to the participants.

Now he can he can just share.

And you can scream it.

Almost let me know what's up.

We'll do there.

You go.

So I will be uh discussing the public works garage renovations bond.

This will be Article 2 on the Barry City ballot.

So the um the uh TIF bond, the 2.4 million is Article 1, this one is Article 2, this is 3.3 million um to outfit the new public works campus.

So just a little bit of history here.

Um, you know, that the city's been looking for a public works garage for for three years, uh, decades even.

Um this has been an issue.

Um really, you know, 2018 things really started to get serious about trying to find a solution.

Um the city hired a firm to assist uh with a new garage solution.

That firm identified a 30 million dollars price tag to build a new garage at Barry City.

That certainly was not feasible or affordable.

And we started to pivot, we started to pivot away from that in 2023.

We ultimately in 2025 were successful in acquiring 277 Morrison Road at $3 million to serve as our new public works garage.

And why was this necessary?

Just really the current site on Vernon Street is totally inadequate.

These are just some images of it.

It's located in the floodplain.

It flooded severely in 2023.

You can see there in the inside shot.

The trucks are sort of jam-packed in the building.

There's no central pile.

You can see there's windows that are broken.

And generally the condition of the site is just poor.

You know, there's maintenance that has been unfortunately not happening for decades.

And it's it's uh we pay a lot to heat the building, for example, it's like ventilation means that we have to pay way more in heating fuel than we should.

There's no sprinkler system to protect our assets against fires.

So if there were to be a devastating fire at the garage, we would lose millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of plow trucks, excavators, loaders, all that equipment that the city owns.

I mentioned there's an inefficient layout.

Uh, really, the best practice for a public works garage is to have a central aisle where trucks can drive in, go to a designated parking spot, and so that they can be backed out when they're needed.

Right now, as I mentioned, we basically have to do a puzzle to fit everything inside.

We can't even keep everything inside.

Uh, all our plows that actually clean clear the roads are stored outside the building.

Um, and that leads to the third bullet here, like a secure storage.

A lot of key things are stored outside that should be a lot of things that that we as taxpayers uh pay a lot for to maintain our roads, our unsecured outdoors uh throughout the year.

There's inadequate staff space.

You can see the picture there of the break room, uh, which uh I wish I could show you the whole view of it because that is basically right outside the mechanic space, or the mechanics are working, and you're trying to have your brake or your lunch, you're right there, there's no core.

Um, it's just you know, certainly not a good place for for our hardworking public works employees to show up every day.

And as I mentioned earlier, it's it's in the floodplain, uh, and it was significantly flooded in July of 23.

So we acquired 277 Morrison Road as our new public works program.

We've owned this site.

This was this is already bought, this is already owned by the city.

We bought it for $3 million, um, and we knew that it would require some modifications, right?

This is right now the bond that this is the old bond warehouse, currently an O'Reilly warehouse on Upper Prospects, right off Upper Prospect Street, uh, and we we needed to transform it from a warehouse into a garage, and that's what this bond would help us do.

Um we bought this, uh we haven't borrowed to purchase this building, we didn't raise taxes to purchase this building, we used existing funds from the Capital Fund from ARPA to and from the water fund to make the acquisition.

So the only uh debt service we're gonna take on is to renovate this building.

Um, what are the kinds of things we have to do to it, right?

We have to change it from a warehouse to uh to a garage.

So it needs overhead doors, right?

Right now, when O'Reilly has a delivery to the building, they have a tractor trailer show up, the tractor trailer goes to a docking bay, they open the tractor trailer, the stuff comes out, and the semi leaves.

We need to actually have ramps and an overhead door so we can drive our cloud trucks into the building.

Um, our loaders, all our equipment needs to actually go inside, uh, not just unload uh goods into the building.

We need the same thing at the mechanics bay, right?

So the same thing or Riley's one wing of the building had two wings of the buildings have uh these loading docks.

One of them will be an overhead door to let the trucks in, the other one will be a mechanics bay where the vehicle will come to get uh repaired and fixed, so we need to do that on both sides of the building.

We need to build some exterior storage, so there are things we do need a store outside like salt and sand, we need above ground fuel tanks.

There's some uh water sewer equipment uh that also is stored outside.

So we need to build those those structures on this side as well.

We need to put in some interior drainage.

Uh so as I mentioned, it's a warehouse of storage right now, uh, but we use it as a garage.

Our trucks are gonna come in wet and snowy, and that snow and water is gonna drain off the trucks, and right now we just sit and pool on the floor.

We need that water to drain out of the building, right?

So that's since we're changing the use of it, this is a need we have.

And then we need to do a little office renovation.

This is pretty minor.

The building has existing office space.

We need to do some light touches to make sure it hasn't it's been uh it has been used for some time.

So some minor updates of drywall, things like that.

Nothing major on the office space size.

But we don't need sprinkler it because it already is regular, which is very helpful.

Yes.

Um so that's another it's a huge, you know, we're gonna save money operationally in this building.

Uh, as Carol mentioned, is sprinkler, so we don't have our insurance right now.

We pay high insurance at Vernon Street because of the risk of catastrophic loss.

Um, and we don't have that at this site.

Um since we purchased the site earlier this year, we've been very busy with the design work to transform it from a warehouse to a garage.

These are just some, this is a the big picture view of the design, and I'll just show you some of the you know this is the same picture sort of broken out into quadrants.

This section shows some of our exterior storage for the salt bunker, the sand bunker, and some of the pipes that would be stored outside.

This is an area um towards the front of the building where we would build a ramp at the overhead, overhead door there on the top left corner.

This is the the we would build an additional access onto Prospect Street, uh, and so that's shown in this quadrant here, and there's another overhead door contemplated to allow for circulation within the building.

Um, so that's what that's what this bond will pay for.

Those those improvements.

So we're looking at about 1.5 million dollars uh for those exterior things like the the salt bunker, the sand bunker, the the the new um the access, the ramps.

Um we're looking at 1.4 uh million for the interior improvements.

The big part of that is the drainage, for example.

Um so we're looking, you know, subtotal of about three million.

The best practice is to add about a 10% contingency just based on how construction costs can change, and that's how we get to the $3.3 million bond that we are asking voters to approve uh in November.

So this is you know, if we take the cost to purchase the building, which was three million dollars, and then voters approved the bond at 3.3 million dollars.

We will have resolved our public works need for 6.3 million dollars.

That is a bargain compared to the 30 million dollars that had been estimated uh a few years ago, and it's also a bargain compared to what everyone else is paying for public works garages across the country.

And this is this is just several examples of valuations that we've looked at to make sure that we're in the right ballpark.

The best one for you to look at on this slide is Milton, Vermont.

That's right here, it's a it's a community not too far from where we are.

This is a very recent garage.

They paid about 216 dollars per square foot for a brand new garage.

If we built a 40 to 50,000 square foot garage, which by the way is smaller than what we're getting in Morrison Road, if we built a 40 to 50,000 square foot building at the prices that they paid, which is recent and in Vermont, so very comparable, we would be looking at 8.6 to 10.8 million dollars for this for a garage here.

We are paying 6.3 million, so we are getting a bargain uh compared to what other uh places are paying for a garage these days.

So the uh as I mentioned, this is uh Article 2 on the ballot, um, and it's uh 3.3 million dollars.

We uh we already own this building.

Uh we're collecting rent from O'Reilly, they vacated in March.

We would love to get started this spring uh to get out of Burn Street.

Uh and if we're successful and if things go well, we could we could be there hopefully by the uh by the beginning of the next snow year so that our plows can be indoors uh and all that equipment that very taxpayers pay for is secure, and never mind the employees.

I mean, I think um you know we you know it's hard not to think about the conditions that they're showing up to work for every day.

They already do difficult work, they're showing up to a very tough place to work.

Uh and so our employees and our equipment certainly deserve better.

Um, so yeah, that's the bond on the public work side.

Um I'm happy to answer uh any questions on that one.

Since we have a small group, um we don't need to do any formal raising hands, but if you just want to unmute yourself to ask a question, now is the time.

We'll uh we'll allow the you know a few minutes here for questions and answers, and then I put this in the chat, but in case you missed it, I will this is recorded, so the city will put this up on its website to have um access to see it, and then also to share it around if there's folks you think that could benefit from a 30-minute download.

Darcy, you have a question.

Um is it okay if I revert back to the first discussion?

Uh question about the public housing going into the floodplain.

Yeah, um obviously you've considered that already.

Obviously, you've considered that already.

But it's a concern that I have because so many people are already at risk in the floodplain when there is a flood uh to put a group of people who are mostly disabled into the floodplain in the middle of town where the infrastructure is already damaged.

Very concerning.

It is also equally concerning that that many people need housing.

I understand that.

Um it's cost effective to put it in this location, but um, I just wanted to mention that.

I also not so much a question but a comment.

Um I'm really appreciative uh the public works and the road work that they're doing right now on the sidewalks and the roads, and um I walk a lot, so I can see the damage in um in the roads and the sidewalks underneath where the gravel has been removed.

So that's part of the reason why it's in my interest to come to this meeting to listen to what is being put up um as options for voting.

Um in support of public works having what they need to continue to keep their roads clear so people can travel, including pedestrians who are homeless.

Um but is there any um jeopardy in voting for one over the other?

Is there enough money there for hypothetically both projects to go without a hitch?

Or is it important for people to vote for either the public housing or the infrastructure, uh the garage, basically?

I would say that um it a couple things.

But I you know, the the city has done a lot of due diligence before bringing any of these bonds forward and feels that there's an important need for for all of these bits and pieces.

Um interestingly, the the debt service on all of them is paid from completely different sources.

The debt service for the housing project, the tax increment financing project, um, would be borne by the additional taxes on the uh values of the properties throughout the TIFF district.

So it's not something that is uh on the backs of the day-to-day property owners and their taxes.

You won't see any increase in your property taxes for for the housing project.

With regards to the garage, because the garage is going to house um the public works uh departments, which are there's three of them actually.

There's the hot in the streets, the water and the sewer, um, the expenses for the debt service will be spread proportionately over the three of them.

So um the property taxes uh will cover the debt service on about 58% of the building, which is the proportion that'll be streets, and then the rest of it will be spread between the water and sewer departments about 21% each.

Um and those will be uh calculated into the um usage fees that are paid for by both very city and very town people who use our water and sewer services.

Um so there's different um funding sources for for covering the um the different projects.

Darcy, I will address your first question on developing the floodplain, which I think terrific question, and uh certainly something we'd consider.

Um I'll say a couple of things.

Number one, the design of the building that's going in the studio threshold apartments will be a will be a building, so the housing will be elevated, the housing will be on won't be at the ground level.

Um there'll be very minimal uh footprint at the ground level that's that's inhabitable.

So these units will be secure, they'll be elevated um from flood dangers.

Uh the other thing I would say is that you know we we've learned unfortunately about hardway that there is a way to safely develop in the floodplain, right?

So if you look at city place, which is a new relatively new building.

Um it was built to uh current plus standards, plus standard flood building regulations in the 2324 plus city place had minimal damage, and I'm talking about some moisture coming up through the basement floor, like they didn't have any other damage in their building.

The building next door, uh you know, spa, old building, not built to flood standards, completely flooded in the basement, right?

And so here's two buildings that are side by side.

One of them is built to flood hazard standards and more modern, no damage.

The other one, not built to flood hazard standards, significant damage.

So we know it can be done safely.

Um, this building will meet those flood regulation standards if it's a podium style, so the residents that live there can feel confident that they won't be their their living supporters won't be impacted.

Now, you know, in a I hate to think about it, but in a in a big flood, like could their lobby perhaps be impacted, possibly, right?

That's certainly possible.

But but what's not a you know, a lobby can be fixed, a lobby can be made.

You know, you can do things to a lobby to protect it and rebuild it.

Their housing won't be impacted, which I think is the most important piece here.

Um so that's a great question, though.

And their mechanical systems are being designed in such a way that they would be flood-proof.

Right.

So elevators, uh heating systems, things like that are all being built in such a way to protect them corporate.

As in not on the first floor.

Right.

Well, or in areas that are completely flood-proof.

Yeah.

And what I want to say is that that was a really good question, and it made me think that maybe other people might have that same question.

So it might be something we can actually um update in some of our media outreach right now.

We're kind of doing a lot of outreach to try to educate folks.

So thank you for bringing that up because others might share that same question.

And you know, I agree.

Um, I think it's a one of those questions like you pointed out, the balance between getting people housed and offering options and solutions for more housing units and having it be safe.

So this was kind of a meeting both both of those things, and in the downtown where it's walkable too, which is where people want to be.

Well, um I was just thinking, you know.

Why not up at the BOR in that parking area where it's already out of the floodplain?

Well, in part two, um, I don't know about that site in particular, but the one of the main attractions of this site is that people do want to locate downtown and live downtown.

And so this is considered an infill opportunity, and we build up, not out more.

And so it's really utilizing existing impervious surface.

And I again, I don't know that other site, so it may be impervious too, but um, but just the fact that people want to be right downtown, be able to walk to work and walk to their um, you know, have that downtown feel.

And so that was what downstreet had decided was a good fit.

It's within um a place like that would be within walking distance because it's only like a block away from the site that you have selected.

It's where people end up going a lot of the times when there is a disaster flood.

Um I I've thought a lot about it, so that I think that housing should be moved up and not necessarily brought into the middle of the flood zone.

But the immediate need is to have housing for people that need it, and not necessarily counting on a disaster that isn't scheduled or planned already.

So I understand and appreciate where you're coming from and um all the efforts to try to get housing for people that don't have it or will need it in the future.

Um just is something that I am concerned about, the location because of and downstreet was the you know developer who proposed, you know, who did come forward with this idea.

So they had done their vetting of you know, comparing it to other options around, but you know, that kind of um suggestion, you know, to message that back to downstreet when you know, if you have any access to them, or we can message that back too, is that you know, that's probably something they're actively considering too.

Is it is preferential to build outside the floodplain, it's more expensive to build in the floodplain, like to build up like this, but to cantilever the parking, make sure that the pick the parking can be underneath.

But um, these are our downtowns with existing infrastructure too, and we're gonna upgrade the infrastructure, but you know, there's a um a will to have a lot of downtown density too.

So it's a it's a balance.

I think it's not a it's not an either or but a both.

I was gonna say something similar, and I I would say Darcy that um, you know, given everything we've gone through the last couple of years, we certainly would not be um this project wouldn't have gotten this far if we had any concerns that this housing would be at risk of of becoming a flood issue, right?

So we we feel confident that the design of the building is such that the housing units will be protected and uh they'll be secure in the event of a worst case scenario because of how they're elevating all the as Carol mentioned the utilities, but also the living units, the the units that will be housing for people will actually be on the first floor and above.

And so certainly I can tell you that our subject staff we wouldn't have recommended it.

I'm sure the council would never have moved forward if anybody had a concern that we were putting people in harm's way.

And so to address the housing challenge that you've alluded to that I know you're tuned into.

And as I mentioned, we know that we know it's possible to do it because we have the example of city place.

I mean, you know, like I said, we certainly would not have let this get to this point if we had any any thought that that we'd be putting people in direct harm's way with a flooding of what we've been through the last couple of years.

And I think you know, both you, Darcy, and and Stephanie, you've mentioned that it's you know it's not either or um Barrie City is involved not only in this particular housing project, which is in the heart of the downtown, because there are people who really want to live in the heart of the downtown, but we're also involved in other housing projects that are outside of the city center, um, and to meet a different need.

Um, so it's important for us to to not limit ourselves to make ourselves open to all the different options that are out there.

How many units would there be in this new housing structure?

The one that we're talking about in the downtown, it's 31 units.

The the one that's um let's see each branch apartments, 31 units.

And those are a mixture of um studio one, two, and three bedrooms.

So it's it's a good mix for a wide variety of bands.

There's another hand up real close.

Um Lisa you want to unmute yourself.

Yeah, sorry.

I usually use teams, so I'm unfamiliar with no you do it great.

So I just um a couple of things.

I heard or saw on the internet that they wrote people who are in, and I missed the beginning of meeting.

I'm sorry, I'm at work, so I'm on my lunch.

Um the stores are gonna be on the first floor, is that it?

And the people who own the stores or the businesses.

No, that's not correct.

I think Lisa, you may be referring to a different project in the downtown, which is the um the Lennings parking lot, possibly.

There's um there's a there's that's that's under a different grant application that's not on the ballot um this November.

Okay, and where's this housing project going then?

This project is gonna be on seminary stream.

Um it's behind what used to be the key bay between that and the green church presbyterian church in that parking lot area.

The parking lot, okay.

Yeah, it's currently an underutilized parking lot.

Right.

So that was a parking lot that was sold to developer for very minimal money, is that yes, yes, okay.

Okay, and so my I usually I'm for I I don't have a problem voting for the housing project where it's you're saying it's being funded from.

I will say this is very selfish of me, but I live and my house has been flooded in 2020, 2023 and 24.

I live on Park Street and the brook is in my yard.

And if I knew that the city was going to do something, my taxes are high.

I lived in Montpelier for 20 years.

I've lived in Ferry for four or five, and my taxes are about the same for a much smaller lot of land and for a house that is worth less money.

Um I'm worried that this was going to be my retirement house.

I'm worried that I won't be able to have value in my house and the the from the city I can't get an answer.

How to mitigate what's going on.

And I would love help, and I've met with um you know, board members to try to get the help, but I and I'm willing to do what it takes to um prevent my house from flooding again.

Um, but if the city addressed those, if there was like a clear path, I'd be more apt to vote for the department of public works, um, funding that with my taxes as well.

But I I just don't, I haven't had any answers, and I don't feel like I know what's going on.

There's a house for sale, my neighbor's house, she's she's tried to do some things to mitigate and has not been successful, and she has not been able to sell her house.

And when it's up for sale, it says it's in a 99% flood zone.

So I think that the runoff has to be addressed, and we have to um make these the culverts better suited for the city.

Um so if I just if that could be addressed, like I said, I'd be more willing to vote for funding the public works department that also gets flooded.

Yeah, I mean I can address some of that.

Um we have applied for funding.

I mean, this all you know, these these projects all take money um and resources that um that are difficult to come by.

Uh and so we applied for funding under CDB GDR, which was a community development block brand, disaster recovery, which was uh submitted in on September 30th.

And one of the projects that we applied for funding was uh mitigation along the potash for a courier park area, which is generally in generally in the neighborhood that you're in.

Um so we have to, you know, it's best to help us understand how to divert water, how to better divert water, how to keep water in channels.

So those are projects that we're trying to we're trying to get funded.

Now, you know, we've been trying for you know almost going on two plus years now to get these mitigation projects funded.

Um, you know, we flooded in 23 before the application deadlines for a lot of these projects had even come.

We flooded again in 24.

Um, we've identified three major flood mitigation projects.

Um, one of them was unfortunately uh lost when the current federal administration canceled the brick program.

Um so it's it's a challenge of getting these things funded.

These are all uh at minimum six-figure projects, and many of them are are going to the millions.

Um so it it is, you know, it is you know, I I share the frustration that I know many residents do, which is well, what what have you what have you done?

Like, well, we have these three tremendous projects that we sort of get keep getting the rug pulled out from under us because of problems at the federal level um of getting FEMA money to help us do this stuff.

So um, you know, we've we've worked to basically try to get these funded through any source we can, which which is why we submitted these applications under CDB GDR.

Um, we're hoping we're successful.

Um, and and if we are, then that's that's how we can start addressing these issues.

Now I'm not um familiar with the specifics of your particular property.

I'm happy to if you reach out to me, I'm happy to talk through uh through that with you.

I do know generally, Lisa, that um you know waters the waters are of the state, which limit the city's ability to uh to do much with regard to um to the creeks and that run uh in the park street area.

But um I'm more than happy if you uh reach out to me to understand the specifics of of your property um and see a more detailed answer.

But that's generally speaking, that's where we do run into issues is working on private property and working on waters because this the state jurisdiction comes in, so I I suspect that that may be a lot of what's going on uh okay.

So to talk to you is it is it A and R who I work for the state but transportation agency.

So is it A and R who I would contact about water?

It it would yeah, more than likely, but I I without knowing the specifics of your the detail specifics of your property, and I don't know exactly who the who the jurisdiction would be more than likely I okay.

So where should we should repeat to you, Nicholas?

Yeah, if you reach out to me, Lisa, I'm more than happy to understand the specifics of your property and sort of understand where the what the issues may be.

Okay, um, so on the funding, if funding is received, where what number project does courier park sit?

If the funding is received, yeah.

If you receive all the funding you've requested, right?

We have three, you said three projects.

Yeah, so where does that fall?

The courier park project is one of the ones that we submitted an application for under CDB GDR.

So if it would it wouldn't have to wait, it would be its own thing.

It would be its own project, not behind anything else.

Now that's that's assuming it's funded.

Um, you know, we we submitted those applications on September 30th.

Um, I know that's very competitive, and there's a lot of applications from throughout the state.

Um, so but one of them specifically was this courier park potash brook area generally.

Um, and because we we recognize that that's a part of the city that um that has flooding issues, doesn't get necessarily the same media attention that the north ended, but we know that it's um that it's similar, uh it also has a lot of residents who were affected.

Yeah, okay, because it definitely it's just the amount of runoff from Barrytown, and I know if they're working on maybe mitigating some of that upstream, which would be yeah, I think that's right, at least I know that they submitted us a similar project under CDB GDR to do runoff in the town, and um I know that I I wrote a letter in support for their project because I know that has downstream positive advice for for residents of Fairy City.

Okay, and then if this um if the DPW project was bond was voted down November 4th, would it come up again?

Uh I I don't know what we would do.

I mean, I I think that uh realistically we own the building now, so I think that if we you know it would be uh you know troublesome to own a building that we can't use.

Um so we would we would start to explore other options.

I mean, there really is no other uh solution for a public works crush.

Um, I think the city's been looking for decades for a solution.

Um, you know, and I don't know what we jumped on in the presentation, but the you know, it was a consultant hired by the city before I started uh estimated a new garage in Barrie City at 30 million bucks.

Um we would have a solution here for way less than that.

Um catch that.

So yeah, so this, you know, and and talking about you know uh you know, sort of going back to Darcy's questions about building in the floodplains, you know, we're very city's four square miles, a lot of it is in floodplain or adjacent to floodplain, and the rest of it is ledge, right?

So we're we're you know, I challenge residents, you know.

Tell me where we have 50 to 60,000 square feet to drop it down a public works garage.

I don't know, right?

I there isn't a spot, right?

So this site we own now, uh, it's right over the city line in Barrytown.

So it's it's not even in Barry City, but it's it's a very town it's right over the line.

Um so you know, if the bond is not approved, we're gonna have to pivot to a plan B.

Um, because the other thing is I don't think it's it's to our benefit to own a building that we can't use as a garage, right?

We we don't really want to be tenant our landlords in Barry Town, I think.

Um and I I worry about you know that that Burnham Street Garage is is trouble, you know.

Like as we mentioned, it's not sprinkler.

Um we spend gobs of money heating it because it's got holes in the roof and the foundation.

Um it's you know, we spend millions of dollars for plow trucks, excavators, loaders that are screws used that are basically sitting ducks in the case of a worst case scenario.

So anyway, I I think the voters, I I trust the voters will hopefully uh see the need for this and approve it so that we don't have to contemplate a plan B.

But um we already own the site, so we're gonna have to, you know, if we are not successful on the buttons, we'll have to pivot to another option.

With regards to the garage, we did do a really careful look at whether rebuilding at that site at our current site on Burr Street was an option.

Um as Nicholas said that site had been flooded, but we also had talked about how you can build flood resilient sites, but not for what a public works garage needs.

We can't elevate a public works, you can't do a pedestal building for a public works garage, and there isn't enough um footprint there available real estate to build the size of the building that we would really need to be able to house everything.

And there's a potential landslide on Penny Street right above it.

Oh, yeah, right.

So it's not a good place to rebuild.

Now we would do have happy that actually you know sort of triggers another thought.

What our plan would be with that site, if we're successful and we move into Morrison Road, we would maintain a small footprint at Burnham Street with like a small shed, so that we could keep the sidewalk plows and a bottom cat down here.

Darcy, to your point about people who walk and you know, clearing the sidewalk side, we don't want to have the sidewalks we were up down from Morrison Road to sweep the sidewalks downtown.

So we would keep a small shed at that site for that bobcat in the sidewalk cloud.

We would sell the rest of that land to the best bit, the highest bid.

Um, and so we would take the proceeds from that sale, and that would be part of our first payment back to the water fund that we use to pay for the building.

Um, and so that's our plan is to be out of the business of Burnham Street.

We we don't we don't want to be down there, it's not a good site.

Um we happen to know that uh you know some of one of our butters is interested in it, so I know there's somebody who's gonna buy it.

Okay, and you said you would take the money and do what with it.

So we would take the money, and we the first thing we would do with the sale of that uh of that building is repay the water fund, right?

So when we when we bought the garage, um we we we borrowed from the water fund and we use capital improvement funding in our home money.

We use sources of funding.

What we have to do is we have to whenever we borrow money from the water fund, we have to base it's basically a loan to ourselves.

We have to pay that back because water fund is supported by revenue of the ratepayers, right?

So what we would do is we would take those proceeds and immediately repay what we borrowed from the water fund.

Um, and if there's anything left, that of course becomes additional revenue for the city, but at least we would we would uh we would have a source to start making that repayment um uh to the water fund.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

We're gonna um wrap this up and just say that we'll um we'll take this recording, put it on the website.

But um I think this also the questions also inform how the remaining time we have between now and November 4th with our talking points.

So thank you for your questions because I do think that that's how this this works best is if we have engagement from the public.

So um keep keep your eye out.

There'll be other um pieces of information to circulate to others.

You know, we're trying to get um the word out.

So if you if you do hear that someone else is confused about it, please direct them to the website or to Nicholas and Carol.

Well do.

All right.

Thank you for everybody.

Thanks.

Thank you.